On September 15, General Douglas MacArthur planned a grand strategy to dissect North-Korean-occupied Korea at the city of Incheon (Song Do port) to cut off further invasion by the North Korean army. Within a few days, MacArthur's army took back Seoul (South Korea's capital). The plan succeeded which allowed American and South Korean forces to cut off further expansion by the North Koreans. The war continued until a cease-fire was agreed to by both sides on July 27, 1953. The war left 33,742 American soldiers dead, 92,134 wounded, and 51,000 MIA.

Suez Crisis

The Suez Crisis was a war fought on Egyptian territory in 1956. Following the nationalisation of the Suez Canal in 1956 by Gamal Abdel Nasser, the United Kingdom, France and Israel subsequently invaded. The operation was a military success, but after the USA and Soviet Union united in opposition to the invasion, the invaders were forced to withdraw. This was seen as a major humiliation, especially for the two Western European countries, and symbolizes the beginning of the end of colonialism and the weakening of European global importance, specifically the collapse of the British Empire.

European Common Market

Civil rights

During this time, African-Americans were subject to racial segregation, but the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s was brewing. Key figures like Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and Rosa Parks highlighted and challenged those who were against African-American rights and freedom. The Little Rock Nine integrated Central High School, which was a key event in the fight to end segregation in schools.

Cuban Revolution

The overthrow of Fulgencio Batista by Fidel Castro, Che Guevera and other forces in 1959 result in the creation of the first communist government in the Americas. The revolution marks the end of Cuban alignment with the western world and begins its association with the eastern world, especially the Soviet Union, and raises the specter of the rise of communism in the Americas.

Culture

Continuing poverty in some regions during recessions later on in this decade. The 1950s is often mistakenly painted as the pinnacle of American prosperity. To some, it also may be considered the peak of the modern American civilization. The '50s were supposed to be a time of the "Affluent Society".

The 1950s saw fairly high rates of unionization, government social spending, taxes, and the like in the United States and European countries. Most Western governments were liberal or moderate, though domestic politics were also affected by reactions to communism and the Cold War.

Beatniks, a culture of teenage and young adults who were seen as rebels and against the social norms, were popularized towards the end of the decade and criticised by older generations. They are seen as a predecessor for the counterculture and hippie movements.

Optimistic visions of a semi-utopian technological future, including such devices as the flying car, were popular.

The Day the Earth Stood Still hits movie theaters launching a cycle of Hollywood films in which Cold War fears are manifested through scenarios of alien invasion or mutation.

Considerable racial tension arose with military and school desegregation in mostly the southern part of the United States, though major controversy and uproar did not truly erupt until the 1960s.

Resurgence of evangelical Christianity including Youth for Christ (1943); the National Association of Evangelicals, the American Council of Christian Churches, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (1950), Conservative Baptist Association of America (1947); and the Campus Crusade for Christ (1951). Christianity Today was first published in 1956. 1956 also marked the beginning of Bethany Fellowship, a small press that would grow to be a leading evangelical press.

Carl Stuart Hamblen, a religious radio broadcaster, hosted the popular show "The Cowboy Church of the Air".

Fashion

Flying in the face of continuity, logic, and erudite sociological predictions, fashion in the 1950s, far from being revolutionary and progressive, bore strong nostalgic echoes of the past. A whole society which, in the 1920s and '30s, had greatly believed in progress, was now much more circumspect. Despite the fact that women had the right to vote, to work, and to drive their own cars, they chose to wear dresses made of opulent materials, with corseted waists and swirling skirts to mid-calf. As fashion looked to the past, haute couture experienced something of a revival and spawned a myriad of star designers who profited hugely from the rapid growth of the media. Throughout the 1950s, although it would be for the last time, women around the world continued to submit to the trends of Parisian haute couture. Three of the most prominent of the Parisian couturiers of the time were Cristobal Balenciaga, Hubert de Givenchy, and Pierre Balmain. Also notable is the return of Coco Chanel (who detested the New Look) to the fashion world. After the war, the American look (which consisted of broad shoulders, floral ties, straight-legged pants, and shirts with long pointed collars, often worn hanging out rather than tucked in) became very popular among men in Europe. The designers of Hollywood created a particular type of glamour for the stars of American film, and outfits worn by the likes of Marilyn Monroe, Lauren Bacall, or Grace Kelly were widely copied. By the end of the decade mass-manufactured, off-the-peg clothing had become much more popular than in the past, granting the general public unprecedented access to fashionable styles. Teen fashion in America favored blue jeans, penny loafers and bobby sox, saddle shoes, poodle skirts, letterman sweaters and varsity jackets, T-shirts and black leather motorcycle jackets made popular by the Marlon Brando film The Wild One, and, for boys, the greaser hairstyle known as the D.A. or Duck's Ass. The hairstyle became a stereotypical feature of rebels and nonconformists, and was adopted by Hollywood to represent the wild youth of the era. Brylcreem and other hair tonics had a period of popularity.

Newscasting and journalism were distinguished by NBC's Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and CBS' Walter Cronkite. On July 7, 1952, the term "anchor" was coined to describe Cronkite's role at both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, which marked the first nationally-televised convention coverage. Talk shows had their genesis in the decade with NBC's Today creating the much-sopied genre format. The Tonight Show debuted in 1954 with Steve Allen as host. The coronation of Elizabeth II was televised on June 2, 1953, highlighting the start of pan-European cooperation with regards to the exchange of TV programs. The Academy Awards show was first televised in 1953 on NBC, and the show holds the distinction of having won the most Emmys in history, with 38 wins and 167 nominations.

Romance comics kicked-off in 1947 with Joe Simon and Jack Kirby's Young Romance and its companion title Young Love. While both titles generally featured innocuous stories about youthful relationships, other romance comics of the period ventured into grim tales of alcoholic spouses, two-timing, and wife-beating. The genre was hugely successful with more than 150 series published during the early 1950s. Good girl comics of the period depicted the exploits of voluptuous women in bosom-hugging sweaters or jungle heroines clad in animal skin bikinis. 'Headlight' covers featured young women bound with ropes or chains, their ample breasts swelling against torn clothing.

Horror comics enjoyed a heyday during the same period. While superheroes had been menaced by warlocks, zombies, and vampires in the employ of Nazis and the Japanese through the war years, it wasn't until 1947 that the horror genre was established with Avon Periodicals' Eerie Comics, the first out-and-out horror comic. Marvel, Harvey Comics, and American Comics Group hopped aboard with the latter's Adventures Into the Unknown (1948) enjoying a twenty year run. In 1950, EC Comics published The Haunt of Fear, Tales from the Crypt, and The Vault of Horror with characters meeting gruesomely violent ends. Horror titles numbered in the dozens in the early years of the decade, most crudely scripted and drawn.

Western comics were fueled by popular television westerns. Dell Comics published a large number of western comics, dedicated to celebrities such as Roy Rogers, Gabby Hayes, The Lone Ranger, and Gene Autry. The Lone Ranger's pal, Tonto, had his own title. Dell also published titles based on popular television shows and films such as I Love Lucy and Davy Crockett, King of the Wild Frontier. DC published several western titles while Marvel saw fifty different titles including The Rawhide Kid, The Arizona Kid, Kid Colt, and The Ringo Kid.

Public disapproval and the 1954 Senate subcommittee hearings

The Cold War era seemed to encourage witch-hunting and comics found themselves blamed for the alarming increase in juvenile delinquency and other social ills. In 1948, American children across the country piled their comic book collections in schoolyards, and, encouraged by parents, teachers, and clergymen, set them ablaze. In the same year, the media began kicking comic books around. John Mason Brown of the Saturday Review of Literature described comics as the "marijuana of the nursery; the bane of the bassinet; the horror of the house; the curse of kids, and a threat to the future." Dr. Fredric Wertham's book Seduction of the Innocent rallied opposition to violence, gore, and sex in comics, arguing that it was harmful to the children who made up a large segment of the comic book audience.

The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency hearings in April and June of 1954, focused specifically on graphic crime and horror comic books.
When publisher William Gaines contended that he sold only comic books of good taste, one of Gaines' comics cover was entered into evidence which showed an axe-wielding man holding aloft a severed woman's head. When asked if he considered the cover in "good taste", Gaines replied: "Yes, I do -- for the cover of a horror comic."

Because of the unfavorable press coverage resulting from the hearings, the comic book industry adopted the Comics Code Authority (CCA), a self-regulatory ratings code that is still used by some publishers today in a modified form. In the immediate aftermath of the hearings, several publishers were forced to revamp their schedules and drastically censor or even cancel many popular long-standing comic series.

Comics trivia

Classics Illustrated continued its literary adaptations, ending its run in the early 1970s after 169 titles. In 1953, Classics Illustrated Junior debuted with fairy tale adaptations for the younger set.

Vehicles

This decade many auto companies produced large luxury cars designed to appear to flow through the air. Considered the "Jet Age", the new aircraft and rockets had an influence on vehicles. All Detroit manufacturers built cars with "Tail fins" and "bullet lights" --- for this reason the 1950s are referred to as the "Finned Fifties". The Cadillac Eldorado is an example of this. Cadillac is considered the epitome of luxury at this time.

Color Field painting and Hard-edge painting followed close on the heels of Abstract expressionism, and became the idiom for new abstraction in painting during the late 1950s. The term second generation was applied to many abstract artists who were related to but following different painterly directions than the earliest abstract expressionists. In the early 1950s Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning were enormously influential. However by the late 1950s Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko's paintings became more in focus to the next generation.

Pop art, with its roots in dadaism started to take form towards the end of the 1950s when some artists, after studying symbols and products of the world of propaganda in the United States, started to make them the main subject of their artistic work. That way, they used the most ostensive components of popular culture, with powerful influence in the daily life of the second half of the 20th century. It was the return of a figurative art, in opposition to the abstract expressionism that dominated the aesthetic scene since the end of World War II. Pop art used iconography of television, photography, comics, cinema and advertising. Andy Warhol was the most known artist of this movement, and in spite of it having initiated in the 50s, its most famous works date of the later decade.

Science and technology

The Miller-Urey experiment showed in 1953 that under simulated conditions resembling those thought to be possible to have existed shortly after Earth was first created, many of the basic organic molecules that form the building blocks of life are able to spontaneously form.

The Mau Mau began their terrorist attacks against the British in Kenya. This led to concentration camps in Kenya, the retreat of the British, and the election of former terrorist Kenyatta as leader of Kenya.

Africa experienced the beginning of large-scale top-down economic interventions in the 1950s that failed to cause improvement and led to charitable exhaustion by the West as the century went on. The widespread corruption was not dealt with and war, disease, and famine continue to be constant problems in this region.

Asia

Reconstruction continues in Japan in the 1950s, funded by the United States which continued its occupation of Japan since World War II. Social changes took place, including democratic elections and universal suffrage.

In 1953 the French colonial rulers of Indochina tried to contain a growing communist insurgency against their rule led by Ho Chi Minh. After their defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954 they were forced to cede independence to the nations of Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam. The Geneva Conference of 1954 separated French supporters and communist nationalists for the purposes of the ceasefire, and mandated nationwide elections by 1956; Ngo Dinh Diem established a government in the south, and refused to hold elections. Conflict then resumed between the communist north and American-supported south.

Europe

With the help of the Marshall Plan, post-war reconstruction succeeded, with some countries (including West Germany) preferring free market capitalism while others preferred Keynesian-policy welfare states. Europe continued to be divided into Western and Soviet bloc countries. The geographical point of this division came to be called the Iron Curtain. It divided Germany into East and West Germany. In 1955 West Germany joined NATO. In 1956 Soviet troops marched into Hungary.